TRIAL BY FIRE

Exposition of a tangled tragedy about which it took “years before anyone knew what really happened—and who was truly to blame.”

It all happened in 90 seconds: a 2003 conflagration in a Rhode Island nightclub that killed 100 people and badly injured many more and that stands today, James notes, as “the nation’s deadliest rock concert.” Name a cause, though, and you enter Rashomon territory, with many contributing factors, ranging from a local culture in which “it was a badge of honor to figure out how to manipulate the system to one’s advantage” to the installation of improper building materials and perhaps willful violations of building codes. Two brothers owned The Station nightclub but were preparing to sell it when the band Great White played there. When the band’s road manager set off a pyrotechnic display, a foam-clad wall caught fire, and within that short span of time, nearly everyone who had been inside had died or been severely injured. The author’s account is minutely detailed, its technical discussions punctuated by human-interest-story portraits of the victims; it is often repetitive, sometimes to emphasize a point, sometimes seemingly carelessly. What emerges from the story is a blend of cascading effects and unintended consequences: The flammable foam had been installed in an effort to deal with neighbors’ complaints about noise, for instance, and the nightclub had no sprinkler system—though sprinklers weren’t required by code and the “deadly danger was never noticed” during multiple fire inspections. Considering James’ exhaustive examination of the facts and the back-and-forth argumentation regarding fault, it is surprising that the legal consequences were not more severe—the fire inspector, for example, received a raise from the town and then retired early on disability—or more broadly distributed.

An unsettling history of horrific events whose memory is still fresh.